Argo [2012)

Q in Joseph Murphy.

MCIA.

Marine Corps Intelligence Activity.

Unclassified files from DARPA.

Now held at Quantico.

Project Veritas.

NCIS.

File name “jag”.

Ron DeSantis.

Navy SEAL.

JAG.

Quantico.

CYBERCOM outed two pedophile producers at CNN.

Drip drip drip.

We have it all.

https://open.spotify.com/album/7IgbjPtUs3iUnf5eWcCb1Z?si=lsb_L_5TRvqAOGNb1FqU0A&nd=1

release_good

https://open.spotify.com/track/2qtyA0aoLHNjChD3aNr2Dd?si=JF6LHX23SgC7uCdXZ7S58Q&nd=1

George Kaplan.

Roger Thornhill.

You can never tell anyone what you do.

Can you keep a secret?

Maybe I stayed home for two months.

Didn’t leave the house.

Or maybe I left the country.

Phone farm.

Replica of house.

Internally consistent.

Who can check?

Two rooms.

Three.

Four.

Four is easy.

One, two, and three are more effort than it’s worth.

Because this possibility never seemed plausible to any analysts.

Ghost Army were decoys.

But their chatter was real.

A ghost army is still an army.

https://nypost.com/2021/05/18/pentagon-reportedly-running-secret-global-army-of-60000/

FISA renewed.

Australia loophole.

McCrystal is butthurt that we highjacked his idea.

Because he used our truth.

Military intelligence is far superior to CIA.

With some caveats.

Old CIA < New CIA.

William Burns good.

Trust operation.

Counter-info op turned into info op.

Counter-info op that hijacked a LARP.

Is it a cover story to protect DTRA and make DARPA look honorable?

Maybe.

Or maybe DoD are less scumbags than CIA are.

War between NSA and CIA.

Hacking capabilities.

Tailored access (Fort Meade).

Vault7.

Frankfurt consulate.

https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/

CIA attempt to usurp NSA area of expertise.

DIA pushback against CIA via DCS.

COVID as bat vaccine.

Aerosolized.

To be sprayed in caves.

Escaped Wuhan lab before it was finished.

EcoHealth Alliance (run by Peter Daszak [check out his opera singer brother]) offered GoF project to DARPA.

DARPA declined.

EcoHealth’s proposal was on a top secret drive.

TS/SCI.

TS/SAP.

Documents not classified.

Pushed off site by Major Joseph Murphy (USMC).

Aide to Commandant Berger.

General staff.

MCIA as intel support to Berger.

In his role on the Joint Chiefs of Staff (who have certainly fucked things up before [Operation Northwoods proposal for false-flag terror attacks {real casualties} on American citizens]).

Now led by traitor Mark Milley.

Also populated by subversive Michael Gilday.

Civilian control by Lloyd Austin (traitor for pushing killer vaccines on troops).

IMG_6157

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html

IMG_6158

https://openvaers.com/covid-data/mortality

Why is CDC parsing HHS VAERS data to make it look half as bad as it actually is?

IMG_6193

How passive is the surveillance of VAERS (historically)?

Let’s take something serious such as Kawasaki Disease as an example.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4599698/

Underreporting of severe adverse events to VAERS appears to be by a factor of 10.

If CDC admits 10,688 #VaccineDeaths , the actual number may be 106,880.

If OpenVAERS gives the real number in the VAERS system (21,382 vaccine deaths), the actual number may be 213,820 vaccine deaths so far in the USA from this portfolio of COVID vaccines (JnJ, Moderna, and Pfizer).

Pfizer is clearly the most deadly (as the above picture shows).

CDC tries to play the “correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation” card, but that doesn’t wash.

Consider this:

IMG_6198

https://openvaers.com/covid-data

For free, techno fog.

Major Murphy makes it clear why this is.

Thank you, James O’Keefe:

https://assets.ctfassets.net/syq3snmxclc9/2mVob3c1aDd8CNvVnyei6n/95af7dbfd2958d4c2b8494048b4889b5/JAG_Docs_pt1_Og_WATERMARK_OVER_Redacted.pdf

The above document deserves extreme scrutiny.

If it is a cover story, it is a good one.

It may provide some cover for the military.

But I think it is largely true.

There is, unfortunately, a reason the military might need cover.

What the fuck is this (ongoing program)?

https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_HDTRA11710064_9761

The “highlights”:

IMG_6249

IMG_6250

IMG_6251

IMG_6252

How could INSCOM not know about this?

DTRA is literally co-located with them at Fort Belvoir.

Do you need the CliffsNotes?

No problem:

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/11/former-darpa-official-covid-19-was-designed-to-be-an-aerosolized-synthetic-spike-protein-vaccine-for-bats/

https://uncoverdc.com/2022/01/12/project-veritas-former-darpa-fellow-pens-letter-exposing-govt-secrets/

Flynn is definitely doing the Lord’s work.

As is Colonel Sellin:

https://www.survivethenews.com/lawrence-sellin-new-pentagon-papers-show-covid-is-bioweapon-made-in-china-paid-for-and-developed-by-us-scientists-who-then-covered-it-up-while-pushing-flawed-public-health-policies/

The Canadian Caper.

Of course it’s CIA propaganda.

But Godard said some of the best (because of their passion) movies ever made were propaganda.

Mosaddegh.

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

SAVAK.

The original Joe Biden (Jimmy Carter).

Inflation (Bidenflation).

Gas price.

Afghanistan and Yemen now substituting for Tehran.

2012.

Obama.

John Kerry.

Pallets of cash (Iran Deal).

Heavily invested in Big Pharma.

It appears Joe Kennedy III took over where the “Climate Envoy” left off:

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/pfizer-inc/members-invested?id=D000000138

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/johnson-johnson/members-invested?id=D000000386

I disagree with Major Murphy on Remdesivir.

Causes fluid in lungs.

https://dailyexpose.uk/2021/09/02/remdesivir-causes-renal-failure-hospital-protocols-are-killing-people/

Completely unsuitable as a treatment for COVID.

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/gilead-sciences/members-invested?id=D000026221

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/merck-co/members-invested?id=D000000275

Problem is Moderna IPO in Dec. 2018 and BioNTech IPO about ten days before #Event201 in October 2019.

Open Secrets (Congressional stock holdings) lagging approximately four years right now.

Kerry just as deep in Burisma as Joe and Hunter Biden.

Ukraine blew it.

They could have blown the whistle on Biden.

They caved.

Now Russia will own them.

They dug their own grave.

Corruption has consequences.

RE:  BioNTech (and Event 201 foreknowledge).

Gates Foundation invested $55 mil. in BioNTech the month before their NASDAQ IPO.

To reiterate, that IPO then preceded the coronavirus war game (sponsored by Gates Foundation and World Economic Forum with help from Johns Hopkins CHS) by about a week and a half.

https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-details/biontech-announces-new-collaboration-develop-hiv-and/

IMG_5583

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-biontech-ipo-idUSKBN1WO29B

IMG_5584

https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/

IMG_6261

https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/scenario.html

IMG_6262

https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/players/haines.html

 

IMG_6263

IMG_6264

#AvrilHaines (John Brennan).

Avril Haines now promoted (by Biden) from extremely-suspicious pandemic exercise RIGHT BEFORE THE REAL PANDEMIC BROKE OUT to head the entire U.S. intelligence community (ODNI).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cias-deputy-director-to-be-replaced-with-white-house-lawyer/2013/06/12/8fc2118e-d383-11e2-8cbe-1bcbee06f8f8_story.html

John Brennan and Michael Hayden are, for all intents and purposes, the same traitorous piece of shit.

No reason for either of them to publicly (a huge break in precedent for CIA and NSA) berate Trump for four-straight years on Twitter.

Brennan’s protege at Event 201.

IMG_5588

IMG_5589

IMG_5591

 

Joint Chiefs of Staff fuckery:

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf

I thought Lyman L. Lemnitzer was the worst CJCS.

That was until Mark Milley came along.

T-R-E-A-S-O-N.

Like Tammy Wynette might have sung:

https://nypost.com/2021/09/17/milley-claims-china-calls-perfectly-within-the-duties-of-his-role/

IMG_6265

But Trump is a fucking retard as well.

Latest proof:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-roasts-gutless-desantis-for-keeping-his-booster-status-a-secret

#DeSantis2024 #Rand2024

A history of Trump’s retardation and #CrimesAgainstHumanity .

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-i-got-the-pfizer-125703879.html

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/trump-played-conspiracy-theory-hits-024518810.html

IMG_6266

Trump had to nonchalantly mention his booster status in what was basically a church setting.

This is about as close to being Hochul-level-evil as one can get.

https://nypost.com/2021/10/05/gov-kathy-hochul-defends-calling-nyc-churchgoers-my-apostles/

IMG_6267

Kinda like how England vaccinated people in cathedrals with organ music playing to calm their nerves (slaughterhouse).

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-01-21/organists-offer-soundtrack-to-jabs-at-medieval-uk-cathedral

Who’s more objectionable now:  Milley (absolutely a traitor) or Trump (absolutely encouraging crimes against humanity [the administration of killer vaccines] when he should know better)?

Milley is a straight-up traitor to the United States of America…and he might be a better person than Donald Trump.

I’ve already demonstrated that the COVID vaccines are dangerous.

Now let me remind you that they don’t work.

[#NeitherSafeNorEffective]

https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2306

IMG_5753

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-covid-deaths-2021-vaccines-b1963790.html

IMG_5785

What would make Trump go from being the best President in modern history (he was!) to a vaccine-worshipping, sell-out cunt?

Some really tortured logisticians postulate that it’s all about “optics”.

Hm.  Perhaps.

But to what end?

What is the strategic advantage of Trump alienating his own base?

Does he really think he’s going to win over liberals?

Is he winning them over by sucking the dick of Big Pharma?

I don’t think so.

The heat is now on Fauci.

-PD

 

The Sum of All Fears [2002)

1973.

Israel.

Plutonium from Savannah River Site.

Department of Energy.

Q clearance.

MOX plant terminated February 2019.

Ask yourself Y?

Palomares.

K Reactor?

Where was an Israeli plane with a nuke headed?

Egypt and Syria.

Syria.

Fourth Reich is Klaus Schwab.

Pieczenik is your Jack Ryan.

Pieczenik installed Putin.

Nemerov is Putin.

Who is going to carry out this hard coup?

“I don’t know. The CIA.”

Code Name: I Don’t Know.

Inside joke at Pentagon turnstile.

NMCC.

9/11.

We will be ripping you apart.

Old Stasi trick.

Shoot one of your own.

Talk shit about CIA for four years.

We are CIA.

Are we?

Why he knows so much about Xi Jinping.

Why he speaks at length about Bashar al-Assad.

Information gathering trips.

Priceless psychological evaluation from afar.

Must estimate.

No rules.

In war.

The backchannel was QAnon.

Frankfurt raid.

Scytl.

Special Forces?

SOCEUR?

Dagger Complex.

Chemical attack in Syria.

Retaliation as Trump and Xi meeting in Florida.

Kabuki of war.

Everything must be done in secret.

Most must be done in secret.

Liquidation will mostly be surreptitious.

Real Raw News not as farfetched as one might think.

Command removal: Austin, Milley, Gilday, Raymond, Berger.

Keep: McConville, Q. Brown.

Wildcard: Hokanson.

Ass licker from 1/6.

How to take blame and fold them back into the pizza.

Knead leavening.

Importance Ukraine.

Over which Zbig salivated.

The biggest bone of contention.

The bread basket.

Of the Soviet Union.

Of Europe.

Enriching Bidens.

Kerrys.

Human trafficking to Syria.

Sacha Baron Cohen jokes about it.

SBC is blackmailed.

That is why he is no longer funny.

And all-of-a-sudden an Alyssa Milano stunt double.

Fort Meade.

Fort Washington.

Rosenstein dirty paws.

Special Forces get plenty of recognition.

Today we are here to pay tribute to Marines.

Colonel Scheller timing.

Matthew Lohmeier timing.

Reconsider Berger and Raymond.

Milley and Gilday are lost causes.

Austin is autistic.

Idiot savant.

CBRN.

Plutonium, not uranium.

We have it all.

Trump and personal rapport.

The art of the deal.

No deals.

Terminate with extreme prejudice.

Knife is sharp.

Gloved forensic cock block.

Trained assassin.

Not attributable.

Multi-national lavage.

Frankfurt Consulate.

A Harrison Deal job.

Vault7.

-PD

Three Days of the Condor [1975)

I’m not a spy.

I just read books.

Like Michael Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil.

Page 49.

And the reason I got an MBA.

Page 53.

When last I wrote.

The power had gone off.

And we went days.

Freezing in a house with no heat.

Eventually our water went off.

Not enough electricity to run the pumping stations.

In a major American city.

San Antonio.

Steve Pieczenik did not work for the CIA.

Read his book.

Buy it.

It is the most important book of the 21st century so far.

Comb through his interviews.

“I have worked with and against the CIA.”

But who was to lead the coup?

The military.

I don’t know.

The CIA.

We are getting deep into machinations which are currently tweaking the world.

The gears spin.

Some free-floating doodads.

Slowed down by the friction of a finger.

Trying to find leaks for Huber.

Trying to find plot devices for the artist formerly know as Special Activities Division.

Planning.

Directorate.

Q branch attempted to bring in Snowden for the NSA.

Look it up.

Who is sent to bring in Joe Turner?

The analogous.

17.

What was Epstein’s townhouse?

The Herbert N. Straus mansion.

Wexner.

As it turns out, Bill Gates and (a) John Roberts did indeed ride on Lolita Express.

Lin Wood was right.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7377133/Bill-Gates-REFUSES-reveal-flew-Lolita-Express-Jeffrey-Epstein-prison-release.html

Take a look at the EXIM.

It is true that the CIA devours spy novels.

This has been admitted by the Agency.

But Sydney Pollack’s film gives this a very unique twist.

https://www.martingeddes.com/how-the-bidan-show-is-saving-america-and-the-world/

Key points:

  • The corrupt mass media that is under CCP control cannot accuse Trump of being a military dictator when the US military overtly becomes in control.
  • You can do military operations that otherwise would be politically unacceptable (think Iran, Syria).
  • avoids confusion for the public of which Presidency they are endorsing”

I have reordered these.

And trimmed a bit on the final one.

Because I do not believe the Organic Act bullshit about Trump being the 19th real President on March 4.

Read the Organic Act.

Unless I have shirked my duty as a researcher, there is nothing in this legislation which even hints at an untoward redirection of power.

Indeed, it is one of the most mundane pieces of legislation I have ever seen.

Judge for yourself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Organic_Act_of_1871

Sure.

The actual Act is many pages long.

All of which are reiterations of the same inane bullshit.

Which is to say, this act did nothing (as far as I can tell) to change the organization or legal status of the United States.

The United States of America.

Another fallacy (I think).

While I am open minded on this point (that a word has been removed somewhere and, thus, we are on a different timeline [so to speak…in the legal sense] as a result), I do not think that there has been a word removed or added TO THE NAME OF OUR FUCKING COUNTRY and that it has gone unnoticed by all legal minds of good will.

Even the worst legal minds (acting in bad faith) are, by definition, legalistic.

Do you think someone wouldn’t have taken the opportunity before now to point out a glaring error which fundamentally changes the legal status of our country?

So, I am not a big fan of this theory.

But I am a fan of Martin Geddes’s writing (to which I have just recently been made aware).

While I do not necessarily concur with all the points he makes in his article (particularly, about Joe Biden being on a movie set, yada yada [sure…it’s possible]), I do agree with some very salient points he makes.

To restate his points from a different angle, there has already been a military coup.

Pieczenik was right.

It was a hard coup.

But it was also (it seems) an invisible coup.

How is that possible?

It does start to strain credibility.

But it is possible.

And I would go far beyond that.

I would say it is likely.

A key part of this coup may be the fact that JOE BIDEN DOES NOT KNOW A COUP HAS TAKEN PLACE.

Indeed, neither does Nancy Pelosi.

This is a secret coup.

So who is running the country?

The military.

Wizards and warlocks.

Robert Redford identifies “a CIA within the CIA”.

Yes.

That is the group that destroyed the Twin Towers (which play such a prominent role in this film).

Lucky break.

Better off dead.

NXNW.

Gunnery sergeant mailman.

Ugly motherfucker.

Same bloke dressed as a broad from Thunderball ?

Maybe not.

Stay calm.

Think.

Don’t leave me hanging on the telephone.

Do not hang up.

The is The Major.

Patriot.

A brutal game.

Yes, keep the heat on.

But drain the fucking swamp, for crying out loud.

Take your god damned time.

But please get the job done.

No country left.

Unless you act.

We are speaking to the counterweight.

Those who are currently running the country.

God bless you.

Let us delineate again.

We can bomb Iran.

Biden will take the heat.

We can fuck up.

Biden will be blamed.

And the most important part.

The country will come to be less confused.

It is the Pepsi challenge.

Coke wants you to be less white.

Coke is Joe Biden.

Crack is Hunter Biden.

Obi Don Kenobi is Pepsi.

The country is getting a free trial of Chinese-style communism.

When the time is right, the covert will become overt.

And it will be done in the way most beneficial to the country.

That is the ethos of those running the country.

And they are the authors of the fucking brilliant Q PSYOP.

As Tucker Carlson was having a hard time locating the QAnon website, let’s help him out:

https://qposts.online

or

https://qalerts.app

There is, of course, no one Q website.

They are all aggregator sites.

They aggregate posts made on 4chan and 8chan/8kun respectively.

Some aggregators have been doxxed.

Other sites have gone tits-up for unknown reasons.

But these two links work as of now.

Like Buffalo ’66.

Or The Tiger Makes Out.

Max von Sydow is excellent here.

An assassin.

Like Locque in For Your Eyes Only.

But more Godard.

Studious.

Professor.

Older now.

Brown frames.

Alpine.

How to evade.

Stay in the light.

How to confuse.

How to keep it up.

How to devise a long-term strategy for survival.

How to become impervious to psywar.

Know yourself.

Know your enemy.

Devise tactics.

To beat the devil.

Identify mechanism for delivery.

Thwart demoralization.

Force brute.

David Icke model.

Warm goo phase.

Working for and against.

At various times.

You must understand Pieczenik in Panama.

With Noriega.

Why did the United States send this man?

You must understand Pieczenik in Syria.

In Southeast Asia.

Trace the network.

Pieczenik has come out for decades.

He has truly defected to the people.

He has given away no tradecraft.

He is not a Snowden.

He is a rock and roller.

And he is not full of shit.

What we are seeing currently is the greatest military operation in America’s history.

Either that, or we are fucked.

Why Spanish, Dutch, and Arabic?

Oil.

Venezuela.

Royal Dutch Shell.

OPEC.

Creative communication.

Hidden in plain sight.

Steganography.

Of a sort.

Repurposed.

Spartacus.

Vendetta.

Anonymous.

Swarming.

I take a different approach.

I appreciate Thomas Jefferson.

Cutting up his Bible.

But not for me.

Because the word of God is holy.

Yet my tattered volume.

Illuminated by colored pencils.

God has tested my faith.

I am weak.

But strong in my core.

And I give my full future to Jesus Christ.

May I bring glory to God.

Even if I curse like Lenny Bruce.

May God work through me as he has worked through Trump.

Rock and rollers.

Similarities to another masterpiece.

The Conversation. (1974)

Of Francis Ford Coppola.

Condor (1975).

No such agency.

Existence of which declassified when?

Current state of affairs.

Space Force.

17th to accede to IC.

Community.

Such a fucking stupid descriptor.

Ostensibly headed by Bill Gates’s bitch Avril Haines (Event 201).

Both beholden to China.

Can’t spell China without ChInA.

The entity which gave us COVID-19.

I am going to enjoy this.

Dr. Kaufman in Tomorrow Never Dies.

Bill Barr.

The worst kind of traitor.

In the same category as Dick Cheney and Mike Pence.

And John Roberts.

Never trust The New York Times.

-PD

The grey suit in NXNW [1959/2017)

Maybe.

After many long years.

I finally got a decent suit.

But the pinnacle is still Cary Grant in North by Northwest.

Perhaps more important than Dorothy’s slippers.

The grey suit.

Gray?  Grey.

Because Archibald Leach (Grant’s real name) was from Bristol.

Now.

The debate rages on.

Was it Norton & Sons (Savile Row) or Quintino (Beverly Hills)?

And this is a very important matter.

Basis in fact.

Innocent lives are at stake here.

Vanity Fair (at least they employed Tosches for a time) contends it was a British suit.

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/03/behindthescenes200803

But The Independent counters that it was an American (Beverly Hills) tailor.

My first thought is always The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (novel 1955, film 1956).

1959.

Something in the air.

Advertising.

Madison.

Shopping.

5th.

Whatever you do, don’t buy a property at 666 5th Avenue.

Mr. Kushner made that mistake.

Can you change an address?

Can we inch the building over a bit?

666 1/2?

But finally, that eternal quote of Mike Ruppert:

“The CIA is Wall Street.  Wall Street is the CIA.”

What could all this mean?

What could ANY of this mean?

It’s well-known.

But the real danger is Finnegans Wake.

Is it unpredictability?

The real danger is changing stripes.

Spots.

Markings.

Camouflage.

A mask.

My daily trousers are sweatpants.

And then we must bring in Erik Satie.

As dangerous (harmless) a man as ever lived.

The “Velvet Gentleman”.

Seven gray velvet suits.  All identical.  One for each day of the week.

A revolution in simplicity.

But there are many, many hours of piano music to wade through.

Through which.

It’s not just the Gymnopédies.

Or even the Gnossiennes.

SS.

It’s a veritable Voynich manuscript of eccentricity.

Quixotic.

Mercurial.

Bizarre!

But with Magritte we got the grey bowler.

And Max Ernst:  “The hat makes the man.”

But did he say it in English?

Not bloody likely!

And so rail-thin Cary Grant, almost certainly homosexual, looks stunning…dapper…a paragon of class in North by Northwest.

And it is a rare time where I (and many other men) say:  “Wow…I want that business suit!”

Because I didn’t grow up rich.

And it took me till age 40 to get a passable sack.

Brooks Brothers was expensive.

Still is.

I’m low-rent.

High-brow.

A conundrum.

I don’t want to sell oil.

I’m a city boy.

They won’t take me on the farm.

So what am I?

Do I ride around on a horse?

Do I spit tobacco into a cuspidor?

[not anymore]

We must go away.  To come back.  And see for the first time.

What was Jia Zhangke talking about?

Or from?

The I Ching?

Or some Zen text?

Advertising.

Memetics.

Messaging.

COMMUNICATIONS

We are drawn to the suit.

The breezy ease with which Cary Grant negotiates New York sidewalk traffic.

Every remark quick.

Never at a loss for words.

And the characters all pay attention.

From Martin Landau to Eva Marie Saint:  menswear.

Three buttons.

[a detail I missed…too late]

Buttons on cuffs.

Cufflinks.

Two-piece.

The most remarkable aspect, though, might be the “grey suit with grey tie” effect.

I mean, “what the fuck”?!?

It is slightly “off”.

Not the color-matching.

That’s fine.

But the concept.

Or this hypothetical exchange:

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Gray.”

“Gray?”

“Yeah, I don’t know…I just like gray.”

“What about it do you like?”

“I don’t know…it’s sorta mysterious?”

“Ok…but, I mean, it seems sorta drab, don’t you think?”

“Well, I’m not in the market for a gray bikini…”

Ah!

There’s the gender.

Men.

Do men fancy grey?

Is it one of the colors they’ve been “given”?

And women.

Do they really fancy pink?

I suppose some diabolical seamstress has plotted the complementary colors of all the world’s hetero couples.

Grey and pink.

Pink and green.

Orange and blue.

Red and green.

Purple and yellow.

Ad absurdum.

All I can say is this.

I feel spectacular in my new gray suit.

I’m a little closer to Daniel Craig, though mostly in the Cary Grant body type.

Or, put differently, I’m an extremely-poor-man’s Daniel Craig 🙂

I, too, would look scrawny next to James Bond.

Which segues nicely into the 007 franchise.

Suits…again.

Whether in Jamaica or parts unknown.

The sartorial fastidiousness would play a major role in framing Bond as “not just another guy”.

Taste.

An eye for detail.

Quality.

And personality, though understated.

The grey suit.

It the biggest weapon in my fashion arsenal (as of today).

And thus we turn towards commerce.

Another run, perhaps, of job searching.

Selling myself.

But at a certain point you just gotta say, “Fuck it!”

I’m a cool person.

I ain’t out to hurt nobody.

I read books.

Big fucking books.

About math and shit like that.

I’m a nerd to the nth power.

I know that.

And I’m fine with that.

Because I see the value in that.

So now I may have to bludgeon the HR receptors with a whole new level of qualifications.

Can I do it?

Can I be a lawyer?

Can I be a PhD?

[notably, perhaps, in advertising]

And beyond.

Because life has led me to this impasse.

We worry about bread on the table.

And some milk to stay healthy.

Heat in the winter.

Cooling in the summer.

Most of all…in all this mess of writing…I am thankful.

Thankful for a chance.  A chance to do the right things.

And thankful for family.  Thankful for time.

Thankful for intuition.

And thankful for failure.

Have your cake.  Or eat it.

Thank you, my friends…for your support.

I am happy today.  Hard day, as always.

And I pray the good happenings for each of you…in your lives…

-PD

Caddyshack [1980)

I’m so happy to be bringing you an actual film review today.

Even though I’m under the weather.

Yes, the airborne molds here in San Antonio seem to have brought on a nasty head cold.

[And before that it was the mountain cedar pollen.  It seems my city is among the five worst in the U.S. for allergens!]

But nothing does the health quite as much good as a larf 🙂

And I must say, categorically, that Caddyshack is a masterpiece.

I suspected as much, but I never truly analyzed every bit of dialogue.

Till now.

And let me just start off by saying, the screenwriters responsible for this film deserve immense kudos.

First, Douglas Kenney.

If you go to the Caddyshack page on Wikipedia, you will notice that Mr. Kenney has no hypertext love for his name in the “informatics” box.

[Correction, Kenney’s name under the heading “Writers” is not hypertext-enabled, but his name is linkable elsewhere on the page.]

The story of Mr. Kenney is sad.

The strangest part is, HE DOES indeed have a Wikipedia page!

So why no link to the Caddyshack page?

My guess is that this film (and its stakeholders) probably want to distance themselves from the late- Mr. Kenney.

And that’s the saddest part.

You see, Douglas Kenney died almost exactly a month after Caddyshack was released.

Apparently Mr. Kenney was depressed about the bad reviews Caddyshack had gotten.

It’s a tragic story.

But we’re here to celebrate this wonderful film!

And there are two more writers to credit.

Harold Ramis, who passed away in 2014, is also credited with writing our timeless work.

And finally, Brian Doyle-Murray (who is thankfully still with us).

These three writers crafted a great story.

But most importantly, they should be revered for the fantastic banter which they concocted.

In its own way, the script for Caddyshack deserves a prominent place next to Ernest Lehman’s North by Northwest.

But to pull off great lines, you need great actors.

And Caddyshack is chockfull of masterful performances.

But first let’s take a look at the socioeconomic aspects of this story.

The action is completely set at a posh golf course in Nebraska:  Bushwood Country Club.

While some of the allegorical caricatures are a bit crude (indeed, the whole film is gloriously crude), there is a nice message to this film.

Quite simply, it is the “haves” and the “have-nots”.

And the main, anarchist “have-nots” are the caddies.

Those lowly youngsters who schlep golf bags up and down green hills in lieu of golf carts.

It’s funny…

The manager of the Caddy Shack (actually played by writer Brian Doyle-Murray) holds the specter of replacement over the young caddies’ heads.

Shape up, or you’ll be replaced by golf carts.

[Or something to that effect]

I can hear the same strains echoing from my local McDonald’s (though I never go there).

You want fifteen dollars an hour?

Great.

Hello robots.

But these kids put up with a lot of shit.

And, though this film doesn’t get this in-depth, I feel for the youngsters who are out there working crappy jobs.

America is fucked up.

A cashier at a corner store shouldn’t be prevented from getting antibiotics for her infected tooth.

She shouldn’t have to miss work because we can’t figure out this problem.

I’m guessing she can’t afford the doctor’s visit.

Or the visit to a clinic.

But that’s pretty sad.

It’s like panhandling…

No one would dream of such an existence.

So we gotta be less cynical.

Yeah, panhandlers will try any trick in the book.

But in the final estimation, one must really feel sorry for anyone who has no better options than to spend their time begging (or, for that matter, hawking cigarettes for minimum wage at the Kwik-E-Mart).

But I digress…

The late- Ted Knight did a great job of playing the yuppie villain in this film.

You want to go to law school?  And your parents can’t afford it?

Well, the world needs ditch-diggers too.

It’s a bloody-jawdropping line from our three screenwriters!

Ted Knight plays Judge Smails.

Yes, a real piece of work he is!

The “good-old-boys” network.

Even up in Nebraska.

Perhaps a jab at Warren Buffett?

We know, of course, that Mr. Buffett was having a very convenient charity golf tournament the morning of 9/11 at Offutt Air Force Base.

And Offutt is the central node of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

And George W. Bush eventually made his way to Offutt on 9/11 (after stopping over at the second most important nuke site, Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana).

And then there was the jet owned by Mr. Buffett that was conveniently in the air near Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.

And Ms. Anne Tatlock who would have normally been in her office at Fiduciary Trust Company in the World Trade Center, but was playing golf with Warren Buffett.

Fiduciary Trust lost 87 employees on the morning of 9/11 when Flight 175 slammed into the WTC.

But Tatlock was in Omaha.

Too crazy to be true?

And who were the other invitees at Buffett’s event?

Let’s return to comedy, shall we? 🙂

Chevy Chase is fantastic as Ty Webb in our film.

He has no editing mechanism.

Here is a guy so effortlessly-rich that he just says whatever is on his mind.

Remind you of anyone?

And if that pointed-allusion to our PEOTUS isn’t pithy enough, we then have Rodney Dangerfield’s ostentatious character:  a realtor!

Remember, in 1978 (two years before Caddyshack) the villain of Superman (Lex Luthor) was also a realtor.

It’s an interesting meme.

Indeed, the word “meme” was coined just two years before THAT (in Richard Dawkins’ 1976 book The Selfish Gene).

So perhaps it was just the Zeitgeist, but our writers had latched onto something with the realtor trope.

However, as stated, the villain of Caddyshack is the venal Judge Smails.

Rodney Dangerfield (who was magnificent in this film) is very much an anti-villain:  the enemy of our enemy.

Dangerfield’s character Al Czervik may be nouveau riche, but he has many redeeming qualities.

To reel in one of my favorite memes, he puts the disruptive in “disruptive innovation” (thank you Clay Christensen).

I mean, really…you gotta hand it to a guy with Budweiser on tap in his golf bag 🙂

But perhaps the most important character is Carl (played to genius proportions by Bill Murray).

Carl is the slack-jawed “assistant [head?] greenskeeper” whose internal monologue is just audible enough to guide us through this film.

Every film critic should identify with Carl (except, of course, the “successful” ones).

Here’s a guy who basically lives in the toolshed.

I mean, the scene where Chevy Chase “plays through” is just classic!

Carl eventually does a little housekeeping with a leaf blower (presaging the eccentric roots of Beck Hansen [whose dust-choking start was still a ways off in 1980]).

But Carl really makes this film tick.

He is the Fanfare for the Common Man.

And there are Bronx cheers in place of the timpani!

[Did somebody sit on a duck?]

Sarah Holcomb probably doesn’t get much credit for her role in this film, but she should.

Ms. Holcomb was born on September 11, 1958.

This was her last film (according to Wikipedia).

While her Irish accent is a bit grating (because, I am guessing, it is merely a plot device), she is a joyful presence in this film.

Ah, but Cindy Morgan really steals the show as Lacey Underall.

And she’s not just a pretty face!

Her acting (and chemistry with Chevy Chase) is really remarkable.

Plus, she has the best line of the film:

“BULLFIGHTS ON ACID.”

God, I love that line…

Which takes us back to our writers.

These guys were really something!

But I haven’t even mentioned the auteur of our film.

It was, indeed, one of the three writers:  Harold Ramis.

Sure, there are cheap stunts (actually, $8 mil. worth…in 1980!).

But they almost all work beautifully.

For instance, the Jaws spoof with the Baby Ruth in the swimming pool 🙂

I mean, God…what a concept!

And even little touches…like Ted Knight hacking through the bathroom door with a golf club instead of an axe (à la The Shining).

The Shining, incidentally, was released about two months before Caddyshack.

[Jaws hailed from 1975 and Jaws 2 had dropped in 1978.]

It’s hard to say to what extent Bill Murray and Chevy Chase improvised in this film.

The same goes for Rodney Dangerfield.

These were/are comedic geniuses.

So no doubt a good bit of credit for the final product goes to these three gentlemen.

But Harold Ramis pulled it all together.

And so, dear friends, if you haven’t seen this film, then you absolutely must.

It’s not Gone With the Wind, but it’s a very significant milestone in the development of cinema.

-PD

The Man Who Knew Too Much [1956)

Netflix seems to be down tonight.

I tried several times.  Several movies.  Several fixes.

And so it is only fitting that history should trump the ephemeral stages of technological development.

Yes, time for a good old VHS tape.

And not a film about which I’ve previously written.

While I have surveyed many of the early Hitchcock films, I never wrote about the original version of this film.

1934.

To my knowledge, this is the only film of Alfred Hitchcock’s early career which he chose to remake.

Just on this fact alone, it would seem that the story was either very dear to the auteur or that he couldn’t resist something about the plot.

Granted, the two films are considerably different.

Even on a surface level, the 1934 version was (of course) in black and white.

But this was a VistaVision, Technicolor production.

1956.

22 years later.

For better or worse, I was familiar first with the earlier version.

It is a film I should revisit.

But it was not what I would call a “home run”.

The one aspect of the original which one might miss in the remake is the presence of Peter Lorre.

But we must move on to the future.  The present.

1956.

Jimmy Stewart plays the leading male role.  A doctor from Indianapolis.

Doris Day plays his wife.

The action is set for a good bit in Morocco.

Specifically, Marrakesh.

Indeed, the beginning of the film is a sort of travelogue.

In other words, its a good excuse to show off the exotic locale in North Africa.

Camels.  Veils.  [that one’s important]  The social tradition of eating with the thumb and first two fingers of the right hand.  While leaving the left hand in the lap.

All very edifying and exciting.

But Doris Day is suspicious from the start.

If we knew nothing of Hitchcock, we’d say her paranoia was unfounded.

But, in fact, it’s Jimmy Stewart’s ease which is the fateful misstep early on.

And so this movie is about suspicion.

Who can we trust?

In this age of anxiety (thank you W.H. Auden), everyone and everything is suspect.

The only true bliss is ignorance.

[and perhaps my only wisdom is that of paraphrase]

One thing which escaped me the first time I saw this version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (in the theater…lucky me) was a funny detail about Brenda de Banzie.

Yes, dear readers (and fans of Peter Sellers), Ms. de Banzie would later appear as the annoying, flamboyant Angela Dunning in The Pink Panther (1963).

Indeed, her role as the terror of Cortina (d’Ampezzo) was her second-to-last film.

But here she is a much more mysterious character.

I will leave it at that.

We get some interesting things in this film.

“Arabs” in disguise.

Which is to say, certain personages of the spook variety in brown makeup (and native garb).

One need not look very far back in history to find a poignant parallel.

Consider, for instance, the “Basra prison incident” of 2005.

I’m guessing that T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) would provide another example, though I am no expert on this matter.

As are almost all Hitchcock films, this one is a tense affair.

Doris Day, in particular, does a surprising job of portraying the personal terror of her character.

Perhaps most notable about this film is the musical component.

As an accomplished percussionist in my own right, I heartily appreciate Hitchcock’s attention to the intricacies of an orchestral percussion section.

Indeed, the film begins with a close-up of this little-featured “choir” (in addition to the three trumpets and three trombones at the bottom of the frame).

What is most remarkable is Hitchcock’s use of the musical score (in various permutations) to tell this unique story.

Funniest is the shot of the cymbalist’s sheet music.

It is nearly a complete tacit…save for one fateful crash.

I fondly remember (with some measure of anxiety) a time when I manned the cymbals for the overture of Verdi’s La forza del destino.

It was a similar affair.

Interminable waiting.

And if you miss your one crash?  Even in rehearsal?

Well, you are screwed!

The judging stares of oboists are enough to melt a man…

But the musical score appears elsewhere.

In the private box.

Perhaps a page-turner for an assassin.

Most vividly, Hitchcock makes the score come alive in a fascinating series of extreme close-ups.

It is like a very erudite version of “follow the bouncing ball”.

So yes…some of our action happens at the Royal Albert Hall.

In an interesting twist of fate, usual Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann garners copious screen time as the conductor…OF ANOTHER COMPOSER’S WORK!

Were it Beethoven, I’d understand.

But the piece is Storm Clouds Cantata by Arthur Benjamin (who?) and D.B. Wyndham-Lewis (not to be confused with [Percy] Wyndham Lewis).

And yet it is a moving piece.

The London Symphony Orchestra sounds lovely (really magical!) in their on-screen segments.

But the real Leitmotiv of our film is “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)”.

Speaking of magic…it is always a gossamer thing to hear Doris Day sing this song in The Man Who Knew Too Much.

I remember a time when I didn’t know this song at all.

Being in a studio with Corinne Bailey Rae and hearing a playback of her wonderful band own this song.

And my discovery of Sly and the Family Stone’s inimitable version (sung by Rose Stone).

But few movie music moments equal Doris Day in her Marrakesh hotel room singing “Que Sera, Sera…” with little desafinado Christopher Olson.

The only ones which come close are Rita Hayworth (actually Jo Ann Greer?) singing the Rodgers and Hart masterpiece “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” the next year (1957) in Pal Joey and Ms. Hayworth “singing” (actually Anita Kert Ellis) “Put the Blame on Mame” in Gilda (1946).

An interesting note about this version of The Man Who Knew Too Much…

It seems to be a sort of forgotten classic, wedged as it is between the first of my Hitchcock “holy trinity” (Rear Window, 1954) and the other two perfect films (Vertigo, 1958, and North by Northwest, 1959).

Actually, this was a period of experimentation for Hitchcock.

Our film most precisely follows the odd comedy (!) The Trouble with Harry (1955) and precedes the black and white hand-wringer The Wrong Man (released later in 1956).

But The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) should not be forgotten!

It is such a beautifully-shot film!

Robert Burks’ cinematography is divine.

And George Tomasini’s editing is artfully deft.

Like To Catch a Thief (which is actually on Netflix in the U.S. [last time I checked]), The Man Who Knew Too Much is a film which perhaps needs multiple viewings to be truly appreciated.

-PD

Burn After Reading [2008)

This film just goes to show that intelligence work might best be described in the terms of humor.

A very dark humor.

Half of U.S. intelligence agencies fall under the purview of the Department of Defense:

-Twenty-Fifth Air Force (25 AF) [Air Force intelligence]

-Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) [Army intelligence]

-Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)

-Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA)

-Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)

-National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)

-National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)

and

-National Security Agency (NSA)/Central Security Service (CSS)

Then there are those executive departments which oversee two intel services apiece:

-Department of Homeland Security (Coast Guard Intelligence [CGI] and Office of Intelligence and Analysis [I&A])

and

-Department of Justice (Intelligence Branch [IB] of the Federal Bureau of Investigations [FBI] and Office of National Security Intelligence of the Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA])

In addition to these 12 agencies, there are four “peacocks”:

-Central Intelligence Agency (CIA [an independent entity])

-Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (OICI [of the Department of Energy])

-Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR [of the Department of State])

and finally George Clooney’s armory in Burn After Reading:

-Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI) [of the Department of Treasury]).

But we must remember that the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) was, until 2003, also part of the Department of Treasury.  Clooney’s character Harry Pfarrar speaks of his previous work protecting diplomats as a “PP”.  Personal protection?  Personnel protection?

Nevertheless, we learn something of which even the other D.C. “natives” in our film seem unaware:  that certain Treasury Department employees carry guns.

This, of course, ends up being a big detail in Burn After Reading.

And so the main thing is to understand the CIA analyst played adeptly here by John Malkovich.

The Balkans Desk.

-Joint Base San Antonio, Texas

-Fort Belvoir, Virginia

-Suitland, Maryland

-Suitland, Maryland?  Or Quantico, Virginia?

-Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Washington, D.C.

-Fort Belvoir, Virginia

-Chantilly Lace and a Pretty Face, Virginia (oh baby that’s 9/11!)

-and Fort Meade, Maryland

[continuing]

-Anacostia? [D.C.]

-DHS Nebraska Avenue Complex, Washington, D.C.

-J. Edgar Hoover Building [D.C.]

-Arlington County, Virginia? [DEA]

-Langley, Virginia

-James V. Forrestal Building (D.C.) [DoE]

-Foggy Bottom (Harry S. Truman Building) [D.C.]

and

-1500 [sic] Pennsylvania Avenue (USA)

All of this is to say that Osbourne Cox (Malkovich) is “a damned good analyst”.

But forget the “PP”.

Georege Clooney is a U.S. Marshal.  And thus under the Department of Justice umbrella.

Right?

All of this makes me sympathize with the witless Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) and Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt).

But the funniest part is the repartee between David Rasche and J.K. Simmons over at Langley.

The implication is that a couple of athletic trainers and an alcoholic former analyst (plus a U.S. Marshal) have spun a web of inexplicable disaster even more boneheaded than the Bay of Pigs invasion.

And so it is priceless to hear these two gentlemen speak in tones of which Leo G. Carroll would no doubt have approved.

“We do nothing.”

When in doubt.

Ah, but Zugzwang?

Nein.

Nichts.

Nothing is scarier than a know-nothing.

Completely transparent.

Like water.

The most terrifying mask.

Princeton pulls the trigger in full-on mental illness.

And with a healthy buzz.

Maybe a bathrobe.

Can’t recall.

But felt very Harry Nilsson (if not Brian Wilson) sartorially speaking.

But the best thing is the CIA in the plastic surgery/philanthropy business.

Slushing the funds.  A little churn.

If only.

The absurdity of it all (for the CIA) most accurately can be explained by the Situationism of Guy Debord.

Like snowflakes.  Overlaid onto life views courtesy NRO.

Photo interpretation.

NGA.  Or even an NGO.

Who knows?

Clap on, clap off, the Clapper.  X X

 

-PD

 

Citizenfour [2014)

Four days till the US election.

OK, three.

But we must take a look at things as they seem.

And analyze what they might be.

I have always written about Edward Snowden glowingly.

But this film is an enigma.

If you know the history of film, you realize that certain filmmakers (particularly Robert Flaherty) presented staged events as if they were documentaries.

This is known as docufiction.

And if you have followed my take on the two US Presidential candidates (Johnson and Stein can suck it…though Stein has true credibility), you’ll know that my assessment of Trump and Clinton has been mainly through the lens of film.

What we (I) look for is credibility.

Having watched all three Presidential debates (in addition to extensive supplemental research), it has been a no-brainer to conclude that Hillary Clinton has ZERO credibility while Donald Trump has immense credibility.

The differentiation could not be more mark-ed.

[Docu-fiction]

But what about Edward Snowden?

Let me start off by saying that Mr. Snowden does not come off as a wholly believable whistleblower in this film.

Perhaps Laura Poitras’ inexperience as a filmmaker is to blame.

Perhaps it is indeed because Edward Snowden is no actor.

But Mr. Snowden is completely inscrutable and opaque in this documentary.

HOWEVER…

there is something about his ostensible North Carolina drawl which rings true.

And so there are two major possibilities…

  1. Edward Snowden is an extremely brave individual who succeeded in “defecting to the side of the public” (to paraphrase)
  2. Edward Snowden is a superspy

I had read of Snowden.  In studying what he had leaked, his credibility seemed beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Such a damaging agent could not possibly have been a Trojan horse operation (so I thought).

Indeed, the most believable part of this film is the last 10 minutes or so.

Sadly, my “copy” of the movie switched to a German overdub for this final segment.

Which is to say, I was more focused on images in the finale.

Every once in a while I was able to make out the beginning of a phrase from William Binney or Glenn Greenwald.

At all other times during this last portion, the German superimposed upon the English made the latter an almost palimpsest.

My German is that bad.

Entschuldigung.

But here are my reservations concerning hypothesis #1 (from above).

A).  Glenn Greenwald’s earliest interview after the leak was clearly shot with the skyline of Hong Kong in the background.  It is somewhat inconceivable that the NSA in conjunction with the CIA (and possibly the FBI or DIA) did not immediately follow Greenwald’s every move from that point forward (courtesy of operatives under the Hong Kong station chief of the CIA).

B).  Glenn Greenwald is a little too smooth to be believable (the same going for Snowden).  Greenwald’s sheer fluency in Portuguese (a bizarre choice for a second language) seems particularly suspect.  The credulous me wants to believe that Greenwald is simply brilliant.  The incredulous me sees Greenwald as just as much a CIA operative as Snowden.

Indeed, hypothesis #2 would be that Edward Snowden is in fact a CIA operative.  His complete calm at The Mira hotel in Hong Kong does not harmonize with a computer geek who just lifted the largest cache of the most top-secret files in world history.  Instead, his mannerisms almost all point to someone who has been hardened and trained at Camp Peary rather than someone who grew up so conveniently close to NSA headquarters.

Snowden is admittedly a former employee of the CIA.

But what could the purpose of such a Trojan horse exercise possibly be?

One strong possibility comes to mind.

As we learn in Dr. Strangelove, there’s no purpose in having a “doomsday machine” if the enemy doesn’t know about it.

In fact, we don’t even need cinema to illustrate this.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were demonstrations as much as they were mass-murder war crimes.

Weapons are “tested” often as much for the power of display as for the exercise of weapon efficacy.

But the world has always been a weird place.

And it is indeed possible that Edward Snowden is an idealistic, independent party in this affair.

The esteemed Dr. Steve Pieczenik (of whom I have spoken much recently) has lately called Snowden “no hero”.

I’m not exactly sure what he means by that.

Possibly Pieczenik knows the Snowden affair to positively be an intel operation.

Possibly Dr. Pieczenik (whom I respect deeply) merely sees Snowden as of no great bravery when compared to the men and women (both military and intelligence employees) who risk their lives on battlefields across the world…by direct order through the US chain of command.

But Dr. Pieczenik has also pointed out that some orders must be disobeyed.

That is part of the responsibility of defending the Constitution “against all enemies foreign and domestic”.

So we have a very interesting case here.

And it directly parallels our current election choices.

What SEEMS to be?

What is patriotism?

At what point must standard operating procedures be put aside?

What constitutes peaceful protest?

Who among us has the duty and privilege to spearhead a countercoup?

I’ve often thought to myself that I would be a horrible NSA employee because I would have a framed picture of Snowden on my desk.

Suffice it to say, I’m sure that is strictly NOT ALLOWED.

But this film makes me doubt the Snowden story.

As a further instructive detail, why does Snowden (in this film) feel so confident in his ability to withstand torture (!) as a means of coercing from him his password(s)?

Again, that does not sound like a standard ability of an “infrastructure analyst”.

Snowden does not admit in this film to ever having been a field operative.

Indeed, it almost feels like Louisiana Story or Tabu:  A Story of the South Seas when Snowden drapes a red article of cloth over his head and torso to ostensibly prevent Greenwald and Poitras from visually seeing his keystrokes.

It is overly dramatic.

These are thoughts.

No doubt, someone knows much more than me about the truth in this strange tale.

And so the film is, in turns, shockingly brilliant and daftly mediocre.

In a strange way, it is just as suspect as James Bamford’s books on the NSA (which I have long suspected were really NSA propaganda pieces).

One of the keys to propaganda and social engineering is gaining the trust of your targets.

In a large-scale psychological operation, the entire world (more or less) is the target.

Back to cinema, we need look no further than Eva Marie Saint “shooting” Cary Grant in North by Northwest.

Yes, Body of Secrets (Bamford) was damaging to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and US military in general (the revelation of Operation Northwoods) while also exposing Israel as a craven “ally” (the USS Liberty “incident”).

But if we are not careful, we are taken in by these juicy bits of “truth” (in all likelihood, very much true) on our way to accepting the whole book as an accurate exposé.

And this is what makes the world of intelligence so tricky.

Like a chess game in which you are blindsided by a brilliant move.

It takes years (perhaps decades) or an innate brilliance (perhaps both) to discern the organic from the synthetic in the shifting sands of this relativistic world of espionage.

I can only guess and gut.

 

-PD

The Life of Adam [2015)

Back again with another installment from the talented Independent Media Solidarity group.

This is a sort of follow-up to We Need to Talk About Sandy Hook (which I previously reviewed).

Our producers are Peter Klein (famously described by Lenny Pozner [ostensibly a grieving parent] as “Evil” [sic]), TNN (presumably TyrannyNewsNetwork [a YouTube “handle”]), and MrStosh (previously identified by his [?] YT handle MrStosh314 in the aforementioned film).

Our narrators are SwanSong (another YouTube handle [whose voice sounds strikingly like that of David Knight from infowars.com]), Insanemedia (the name of the site Swan Song edits…another YouTube name?), and the previously mentioned producers (minus Klein).

I have to admit…

The first time I heard Steve Shine’s opening song (about Adam Lanza) I wasn’t overly impressed.

But it has grown on me.

It employs echo delay rather effectively.

But let’s clear the air.

Just what is it to which this film’s title refers?

It is, if I am not mistaken, a bit of police radio activity from Dec. 14, 2012 which sounds like the phrase “end the life of Adam”.

I have been familiar with that thread of inquiry for awhile.

I initially didn’t put much stock into those elusive words.

It’s almost like something you’d hear on a ghost-hunting program.

But it makes some sense…

Was it a garbled phrase?

A twisted transmission?

Or did some official from some U.S. government agency (FEMA?) actually utter the words “end the life of Adam”?

Because, you see, within the Sandy Hook research “community” (hey, if our 16 intel agencies can be a community, then fuck off!) it is not firmly established whether Adam Lanza even existed.

This emaciated superhuman of murderous efficiency seems to be a prime candidate for fictional personage.

In the opening credits of our film, you can also see a graphic symbolizing the theory that Adam Lanza (who may have only existed in a handful of photographs) was actually his brother Ryan Lanza at an earlier age.

To simplify (Mr. Ockham), there was no Adam.

There was only Ryan.

And to borrow a phase from another brave bunch of auteurs (aside from this IMS crew), it is quite possible (perhaps even probable) that “nobody died at Sandy Hook”.

The consensus from Dr. Fetzer and others seems to be that it was a drill which was passed off as the real thing.

I have not had the pleasure of reading Nobody Died at Sandy Hook, but the fact that Amazon.com, Inc. banned the book (after it had done brisk sales for about a month) while continuing to sell Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf is really a case of the world having been turned on its head (to paraphrase Guy Debord).

But we press on…

The story of Adam Lanza seems to be about more than just gun control.

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree that the primary purpose of the event was to take another Fabian socialist baby-step towards disarming the American public, but there’s a little more to it.

IMS do a great job of highlighting this.

Adam Lanza is Tim McVeigh updated for 2012.

It had been about 17 years.

It was time for another unbelievable domestic terrorist to emerge.

Now, I’m no expert on the OKC bombing, but from what I’ve seen it looks like McVeigh was a patsy in the mold of Oswald.

Adam Lanza seems to be a whole new level of government duplicity:  a virtual killer.

Sandy Hook seems to be a “kinder, gentler” form of state-sponsored (you read right) terror.

My guess is that some of our leaders in the U.S. fancy themselves to be quite humane now that they’ve marginally figured out how to kill without killing.

All they wanted were the effects.

“Never let a good tragedy go to waste.”  –Rahm Emanuel?

If true, this would be a new systemic trend.

It goes along laughably with the “pinpoint precision” of drone attacks.

We know that is not true.

Ask the residents in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.

Or I might have it all wrong…

Because the truth is on CNN, right?

Remember Desert Storm?

Ooohhh…Ahhhhh…

Cameras on bombs.

Look, ma!  We’re killing the “right” people.

Yay!!!

Look how humane war has become 🙂

The Gulf War…1990/1991.

An in-and-out burger war.

“Kinder, gentler” bombing.

At least it was marginally “prudent” (though completely duplicitous).

You can take the Hill & Knowlton campaign…Kuwaiti babies ripped from incubators.

[As witnessed by the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the U.S….who (she) was not in Kuwait…and was not advertised for who she really was…because she was acting…in front of the U.S. Congress…in a public relations campaign to shore up public sentiment that war (the Gulf War) was necessary.]

But you can also dig deep…into the State Department…and know that Saddam was given a promise that we would not interfere if he invaded Kuwait.

Whoops…  Sounds like a cynical stratagem FOR WAR to me.

Just itching to get their war on (as the inimitable Wayne Madsen says)…

So back to Adam Lanza.

No.  Wait a minute.

Let’s not forget the United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade (1999).

In eight years (since our techno-war, our “smart bomb” Gulf War) we hadn’t learned how to read a map.  Fucking ridiculous!

We “see” Adam Lanza from the back.  Playing Dance Dance Revolution (not to be confused with East Germany…the other white DDR).

“Adam Lanza” with his Beatle haircut.

So what is this “other” agenda to which I referred?

Other than gun control.

It is that WEIRD = BAD.

If someone is shy or out of the ordinary, then they are your next shoot-’em-up rampage candidate.

Who benefits?

Cui bono?

The system.  The spectacle (to again reference Guy Debord).

If you don’t look the part.

If you aren’t in style.

God forbid you’re as dorky as Napoleon Dynamite.

Then everyone should fear you.

You are a virus.  A stain.

What did they focus on?

Autism.

The purported acts of Adam Lanza have nothing to do with autism or Asperger’s syndrome.

But that was one of the insidious messages which the DUMB public was to receive.

Yet some are not buying it.

Even if I was a proponent of gun control (which I am not…rather, quite the opposite), I wouldn’t feel good about the hollow (ineffective) victory achieved by the national security state through Sandy Hook.

It’s worse than Realpolitik.  It’s the consummation of our simulation culture.

We should get around to dragging Baudrillard into this at some point.

So, you ask:  who’s fighting for you?

Well, in addition to Independent Media Solidarity, there is Sheila Matthews of ablechild.org.  You can hear her story in The Life of Adam about the quest to make Lanza’s psychiatric treatment history public.

It’s not public.

Almost nothing about this weird Sandy Hook case is public.

It’s all secret.

It’s all in line with the limits of reality.

If the reality was that it was merely a drill (passed off as real) to sway public opinion, then it would have the limits of reality placed upon it.

The fraud could only be as convincing as its budget (and the devious professionalism of those running this operation).

The unnecessary secrecy is in line with the potential truth.  There are no pictures of the crime scene because there was no crime scene.

Rather, the crime scene was the scene of a far different crime.

The crime was fraud, not murder.

I can’t help bringing up Anderson Cooper again…because his whole role in this shenanigan is really revolting.

It is no stretch of the imagination to say that he and CNN are responsible for an extremely articulate, tenured professor losing his job.

That is the misfortune of Dr. James Tracy.

You will hear his story in The Life of Adam.

You’ll see the fumbling, bumbling police Sgt. Paul Vance (who threatens people like me for spreading rumors).  This is the same authority who couldn’t make up his mind where the supposed shooter (Lanza) shot himself.  Was it in the hall?  Room 10?  There’s a difference.  How could you forget that?  It’s fresh on your mind.

Better have a look at your FEMA script one more time…

Of particular interest is the story of Sabrina Phillips.

I must admit that her line of inquiry sometimes loses me.  In other words, she is deeper into this than me.

But I really respect what she is trying to do.

Dig up the truth.  Damn it!

Not only does television suck (sorry all you network addicts), but the news is blatantly fake.

Anderson Cooper needs to march right back to Langley and demand better acting lessons.

As James Mason said, perhaps the “Actors Studio”.

You are no Cary Grant, Mr. Cooper.  You’re no Murrow.

You’re nothing.  You’re just a well-dressed sellout.

The Internet will reveal your grave error in getting Tracy fired.

You’re no journalist.  You’re no better than the “evil empire” over at Fox News.

You know that.  Deep down inside.

You are truly a gigantic nothing.

There’s no Edelman to PR you out of this one.

You lose.  Your network loses.  CNN is not your network.  Seems pure CIA to me.

Ok, mini-diatribe over.

I hope you will take the time to watch The Life of Adam and its equally-brilliant predecessor We Need to Talk About Sandy Hook.

The sad fact is that conspiracies are ruling our lives.  We can ignore them, but they are the main political tool of the 21st century.  They get somewhat more sophisticated each time, but they are still false flags…still just kids with their hands in the cookie jar pointing at an uninvolved sibling.

 

-PD

Kanał [1956)

I feel like this film.

Every day.

But it might as well be today.

Trudging through excrement.

There is no kindly way to put it.

War.

I do not know.

Resistance.

I do.

Give me that wedding ring.

No thing of value will perish with you.

It is hard to keep your thoughts clear in a sewer.

Surely lighting a match is unadvisable.

But we only know the Merry Christmas war.

Shitter’s full.

The miserables.

Henry Miller may have imagined it too late.

As Robert Schumann said, you must only think of a melody and write it down.

Or remember a melody that no one else has remembered.

I don’t know.

It’s hard to think down here.

With these fumes.

Starved for oxygen.

But we have a real story.

Teresa Iżewska is all but forgotten in the English-speaking world.

What a shame.

Because she conjures a dying palliative.

Don’t open your eyes, Saul.

Let me describe it to you.

There is a Bechstein piano with the left front leg missing.

Kissing the ground.

And the composer goes to work.

The focal point of our story.

Władysław Sheybal or Vladek Sheybal.

He brings the movie to life along with director Andrzej Wajda.

Yes, I fell in love with Polish films because of Popiół i diament.

And now we come to Kanał.

The sewer.  Sewers.  Dante.  Hell.

“Piano music should only be written for the Bechstein.”  –Claude Debussy

But did he say it in English?

Surely not Polish.

And so we celebrate our heroes now in our resistance.

Andreas von Bülow, for instance.

And we turn our ear to the acoustics of this torture chamber.

Thanks to Hans von Bülow.

You probably know Sheybal (if at all) as Kronsteen of From Russia with Love.

Yes, the early Bond films had credibility.  Class.

Goldfinger employed Gert Fröbe (whom I should have mentioned for his small-yet-comedic role in Mr. Arkadin).

And now we still have great actors in the Bond films…Daniel Craig (yes, I believe he’s truly special), Jesper Christensen (an acting god!), Ralph Fiennes (another holy)…even Ben Whishaw when he doesn’t have shite lines.

And who doesn’t love Léa Seydoux?

But to this formidable ensemble was added the raw sewage/faux talent of Christoph Waltz.

Likewise, John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Jez Butterworth…these four fell far short of the mark in Spectre that Jerzy Stefan Stawiński set with Kanał.

I mention Spectre because I have been reconsidering my harsh review of it.

But, dear friends, much of my revulsion concerning Spectre remains (even after a second viewing).

On the other hand, a film literally steeped in shit (Kanał) has stood the test of time for 60 years.

ATTN:  James Bond franchise (Eon Productions), Hollywood, et al.

Stop stopping at Hitchcock.

Sam Mendes.

Your rips of The Birds and North by Northwest did not go unnoticed.

But why not delve deeper into film history?

Wanna help bring down the surveillance panopticon?

Gonna have to try a lot harder than that.

The façade won’t crumble with half-assed efforts.

Start here, perhaps.

 

-PD